


Lovely Way to Burn

by CFonticola



Category: Original Work, World of Darkness (Games)
Genre: Banter, Gen, Nonnies Made Me Do It, Sickfic, Vampire/Werewolf Friendship, pardon my french
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-27
Updated: 2018-12-27
Packaged: 2019-09-28 06:22:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,348
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17177576
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CFonticola/pseuds/CFonticola
Summary: Adrien is sick and pathetic and alone. Good thing Myria is nice and cool.





	Lovely Way to Burn

"Well," Myria said, leaning into the doorway to squint and cross her arms. "This is new."

Adrien gave a grunt, turned around and stalked back into his apartment. The blanket thrown over his shoulders fluttered in his wake like a cape.

"No you don't." She rushed in after him into the darkened living room. The space was lit only by one sad lamp, and between that, the spartan furniture, and the ominous glint of what little yellow light there was on the double axes hanging over the couch - oh yes, those were definitely real - Myria was getting a distinct sense of why Adrien's tribe of werewolves went about calling themselves Shadow Lords. Not that she was in a position to judge - she lived in a _chantry_ \- but right now it didn't quite go with the way her personal Shadow Lord flopped down onto the couch and swore until he ran out of breath. In French.

_"Bordel de merde, c'est ridicule, mourir dans la misère..."_

Myria stood cross-armed before him. "We have a strategic meeting."

"No we don't."

"Well, your alpha and my pontifex do, and we're attached."

"No, I don't." He growled, then groaned. "I am dying."

"Can your kind die of man-flu?"

" _Putain_ , it's the taint of the Great Destroyer, you cold dead bitch, I fought through a horde of those shit ballsack-face exploding things, _comment en anglais_ , Fomori? Pft. I am the heroic protector of Mère Gaia -" he wobbled halfway to his feet and fell back again with a distinct answering groan from the couch. "And I do not deserve this."

"You're absurd," Myria said, and sat right down next to him.

It was a reasonably comfortable couch. Very warm, which Myria never said no to. Not that she felt temperature changes very precisely in her undead state, but warmth was always a little bit like feeding, which was a little bit like living, which was what every Kindred spent their existence seeking, essentially. She wasn't sure how it was that warm in this particular spot in the otherwise chilly apartment, but she shifted to place herself a little more firmly on her nice sinking cushion, nonetheless.

"What shall we do about the meeting?"

"Fire-bomb it. I don't care."

"For Caine's sake, Adrien."

"My alpha has other people with axes."

"Let me call the chantry." This was going to be an interesting bit of explaining to do. _Sorry, babysitting the werewolf I was explicitly told not to get too friendly with when we were assigned to this job._ "You're not really dying, are you?"

" _Non_. Only my healing not working right." He sniffed. Myria thought it was the most pathetic sound she had ever heard from a werewolf until he followed it up with a sneeze. _"Ah oui, je meurs..."_

"Try to hold off with it a little." She settled for texting her apprentice. What were apprentices for, if not to be some cannon fodder between herself and whichever chantry elder was on the prowl for ritual material this week? While one hand worked the smartphone, the other smacked Adrien across the chest. "Don't read over my shoulder. I don't know what you expect me to do about this nonsense. I haven't had the flu in a hundred years."

"Do? I ask you to do anything?"

"You're sick and pathetic and alone, Adrien. You might as well put up a neon sign, _insert Myria here._ "

"I am a heroic protector," Adrien grumbled, and sank five more inches down into the couch.

Hasty rearrangement sure to come back to haunt her later done, Myria put the phone down on the coffee table. The plus side here was that she could soak up the couch's nice warmth for a bit more, maybe. The minus side was obvious as soon as she took a good look at Adrien. He had that upsetting splotchy-gray colour that mortals - even werewolves, apparently - got when they were sick. Pale everywhere except the flush across his cheekbones and nose. Bags under his eyes looking more like pits of darkness. Sweaty dark hair hanging limp over bloodshot eyes. The way he continued to sniff made Myria very happy that she was over breathing as a concept. It was all very heart-rending.

Of course, he was also curling up into a black quilt with ruby-eyed gray ravens embroidered into it, and she wasn't sure that was quite giving him the serious martyr vibe he was going for.

"All right, then." How did this work again? She hadn't been joking about those hundred years. "What can I actually do for you?"

"Kill me with dignity."

"Do you have medicine?

"What medicine, human medicine?"

Myria looked across the table. "You have tissues, you have tea..."

"I'm a werewolf, not an animal." Adrien rubbed his nose, rubbed his eyes, then just gave it up and rubbed an open palm all over his face. "I deal with all that. It's the, how to say, shitting fuck English, it's the-" he pressed the back of his palm to his forehead.

The drama, Myria thought, but she said, "fever?"

" _C'est vrai,_ that. My brain, it is a boiled egg. All day I'm hot, cold, hot again, don't eat, don't sleep, just cook in my own juices..."

In the midst of looking for words to express her revulsion, a light-bulb went off in Myria's head.

"So that's why it's so nice and warm here."

He blinked at her, a bit stupidly, though granted his brain was a boiled egg. Myria reached out and pressed the back of her own palm to Adrien's brow. The heat she found shocked her for a moment. She'd forgotten how hot mortals could run. It was... almost nice.

Adrien's groan filled every last dark corner in the apartment. He practically dropped his head like a stone into her hand. When she pulled it back in what she thought was perfectly understandable alarm, he actually whined, a long, drawn out, " _noooon..._ "

"What was that?"

"You're so nice and cool..."

"I'm sorry, what?"

"Come back here." He dragged himself along the couch and closer to her. Myria began a strategic retreat, but it turned out that even in the deepest hell of flu, a determined werewolf enforcer was still too fast and strong for a baffled vampire archivist. He threw his arms around her and stuck his face against her stomach. "Oh this feels good. You are my favourite moving corpse."

"Get off me, you snotty disgusting dog - "

"Myria, Myria, I am sick and pathetic and alone - "

"Get _off_ \- " she wriggled and batted at the back of his head, but by the Blood, he was warm. Other than the being hugged by the sweaty rumpled werewolf that she had definitely been warned not to get too close with part, this was... not not-nice.

She slapped the back of his head again and made him look up to her. He had an idiotic smile. "Get your face out of my lap and sit up. Make some actual room for me."

"Anything for you."

"You're absurd. All right, let me have some blanket." It took pushing, and pulling, and a few well-directed kicks, but eventually she was half lying on the couch with Adrien flopped against her, cheek against her collarbone, where he sighed in bliss. He followed it up with a string of happy cursing, of course, but at this point it was almost endearing.

Myria brushed all the sticky hair out of his face. His loopy smile was fixed now. He gave a croaky little chuckle at every cool touch. "Adrien?"

" _Oui_?"

"If you sneeze on me I will hunt down your descendants for the next hundred years."

"On my honour as a warrior of Gaia." He sniffed. "Only if you pass the tissues."

"You're absurd _and_ revolting." But she did, and shifted a little in place to prepare herself for the long haul with her armful of now comfortably sleepy werewolf. Maybe it was more than just almost endearing. Shouldn't have gotten so close, but now that it was so nice, they might as well go all the way.

**Author's Note:**

> No seriously I'm sorry about the French.


End file.
